I also like "Strategy in Action" for more concrete / less abstract thinkers more focused on execution. These people shouldn't be working on company strategy, but this step-by-step approach is a good fit for them I think.
Also nice, they're all on Audible.
One problem that Rumelt raises is that of information. How do you come to know enough that you can reach a diagnosis?
If deciding on a strategy is the problem to be solved, then gathering the right information is the problem before the problem to be solved.
Secondly, if many people are familiar with these ideas, and their organizations are still not able to decide on an effective strategy, then there is a deeper and more interesting problem: how do you build groups of people that are able to reach good decisions together?
And it's not enough to simply encourage argument, as Dalio would suggest: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy
But I think the big takeaway is that strategy is neither goals nor actions, and thus not a list of what to do or what not to do. Rather, strategy is a precisely defined diagnosis of a problem and a specific response carefully designed to leverage your strengths / advantages against the problem. If you have that, then the answer to what you’re not doing is very clear: “anything else.”
For personal goals, I’d take a look at Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a pretty good rundown of personal behavior and behavior change, with a lot of easy, hands-on guidance on how to set and achieve personal goals.
A real strategy consists of the following parts, which the author calls the “kernel” of a strategy. If any of these are missing, you don’t have a strategy.
1) A diagnosis of the problem or opportunity.
2) A high level guiding policy / hypothesis for how to respond.
3) Coherent Actions that will be your first / primary steps to execute on the strategy.
I’ve found that just getting that idea into my head has transformed the way I think about problems, and plan and communicate responses. I couldn’t recommend the book enough.